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North Koreas Kim Yong Nam was among the most mysterious, and most reported on, guests at the inauguration of Irans President Hassan Rouhani over the weekend. Some media, eager to boost the profile of foreign visitors to the ceremony that marked the beginning of Rouhanis second term, cited Kim Yong Nam as the hermit kingdoms second most powerful man.

That is slightly inaccurate, since no one is quite sure how the complex webs of power inside the North Korean regime are navigatedother than the fact that Kim Jong Un, the countrys leader and the grandson of its founder, reigns supreme. Kim Yong Nams most relevant title is President of the Presidium of the Supreme Peoples Assembly of North Korea, which is a very long way of saying he is the speaker of the parliament.

On paper, he forms part of the executive triumvirate that includes Kim Jong Un, but his powers seem to be mostly ceremonial. Simply put, Yong Nam, who used to be the minister of foreign affairs from 1983 to 1998 under Kim Jong Uns father, is the regimes envoy to the world. It was he, for instance, who issued a message of congratulations to Emmanuel Macron after he was elected French president.

This isnt Yong Nams first trip to Iran. He also visited in 2012 to attend the Non-Aligned Movements summit in Tehran. Then as now he was in the country for about 10 days, making many official visits and appearances, signing agreements for technical and educational cooperation between Iran and North Korea.

If he is forging deals to help Iran get the kind of nuclear and missile technology with which North Korea has surprised and frightened the world, but relations between the two governments go back a long way, and shared weaponry and technology has been key to their rapport.

[As The Daily Beast has reported, critics of the Iran nuclear deal with the West have gone so far as to raise the possibility that Iran continues to develop nuclear weapons and missiles inside North Korea.]

IranWire published background on the two pariah states in 2014 that helps put in perspective the curious relationship between the Islamic Republic and the worlds strangest hereditary non-monarchy.

Following are excerpts:

Iran and North Korea occupy overlapping territory in American perceptions, partly because President George W. Bush accused both countries, in his 2002 State of the Union speech, of pursuing weapons of mass destruction, mistreating their populations, and threatening world peace as members of an axis of evil.

Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has written that some people over-interpreted Bushs speech to mean the axis is an alliance among the states he named (the third being Iraq), but its true that Iran and North Korea (which identifies itself as the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, or DPRK) have maintained an enduring relationship since 1979, based mainly on military trade and shared opposition to US interests.

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A History of Shared Wounds

North Koreas Great Leader, Kim Il Sung, first reached out to Irans Supreme Leader, Ruhollah Khomeini, in May 1979, sending him a congratulatory telegram on the victory of the Islamic Revolution, according to Steven Ditto, adjunct fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. On June 25th of that year, Khomeini met with DPRK Ambassador Chabeong Ouk in Qom on what Chabeong called the 29th anniversary of the aggression of U.S. troops against the meek nation of Korea. And Khomeini replied in kind, calling called for the expulsion of American troops from South Korea..

Bound together by anti-Americanism and a narrow foreign policy driven by resentment, Iran and the DPRK found a natural common ground from the outset. This fit into a larger trend of Iran establishing diplomatic and trade relations with non-hostile countries, Ditto said. That is, Khomeini envisioned that relations could be made with any country, regardless of ideological orientation.

But despite both countries lurid expressions of hatred for the United States, the relationship was ultimately propelled by revolutionary Irans military needs in the early years of the Iran-Iraq War.

The Khomeini regime was a pariah, desperate for military equipment and ammunition. They reached out to everyone they could, and few were willing to help. One of those was North Korea, said Joseph Bermudez Jr., an analyst of the Korean Peoples Army. On the North Korean side, its likely that they just saw Iran as a paying customer. Iran had oil. Iran had cash. North Korea had weapons but no cash and no oil, so it was an ideal match.

For other nations that wanted to profit from arms sales to Iran without any political cost, North Korea served as middleman. North Korea enjoyed excellent relations with the Soviet Union, and was well placed to act as a conduit for Soviet-made arms to Iran at a time when the Kremlin was wary of offending Iraq, the historian Dilip Hiro noted in The Longest War, his history of the Iran-Iraq conflict. North Korea, he wrote, also served a similar function for China, which was wary of upsetting Egypt and other Arab allies by selling Iran arms. Speedy arrival of urgently needed weapons from North Korea boosted the morale of Irans post-revolutionary forces.

A Military Relationship Forged in War

In return for Iranian financial assistance, North Korea provided Iran with the SCUD B ballistic missiles it used against Iraq in the War of the Cities, according to former U.S. intelligence officer Bruce Bechtols book Red Rogue. Even after the Iran-Iraq War ended, Irans military ties with North Korea deepened. Bechtol wrote that since the 1990s, North Korea has helped Iran to develop its Shahab missiles, based on North Korean models, and that it is believed North Korean representatives attended Irans test of its Shahab-4 missile in 2006.

North Korea has had military observers in Iran since the 1980s, says analyst Bermudez, who has lectured U.S. Army and Naval intelligence staff on North Korean defense. These people have watched U.S. operations in Iraq and the Persian Gulf, and have drawn lessons. It is likely that equipment Iran acquired from Iraq through defections or capture has been shared with North Korea. More recently, he says, there have been persistent rumors about North Korea hosting Iranian technicians, scientists, and military officials at ballistic missile tests, and vice versa. Its likely, he says, but we cant prove it.

What remains unclear is whether Iran has benefited from North Koreas longer-range missile testing. Wed like to know whether progress being made in one countrys program is benefiting another, said Jon Wolfsthal, deputy director of the James Martin Center for Non-Proliferation Studies. One question that has never been adequately answered is how far does the missile cooperation go, and has it spilled over into the nuclear realm?

Wolfsthal, who served in the White House for three years as special advisor on nuclear security to Vice President Joseph Biden, also pointed to U.S. concerns over whether the two countries share information about their nuclear programs, since North Korea has nuclear weapons. We know that North Korea knows how to build a basic nuclear device, theyve tested several. Is that information flowing? Iran has a very advanced centrifuge program based off the Pakistani network. We know North Korea has made some progress, but theyre not as technically skilled as some of the Iranian engineers, and so, have Iranians been helping the North Koreans perfect their uranium enrichment program?

Diplomatic Exchanges, Friendship Farms

It is in the long history of diplomatic and cultural exchanges that the symbolic bond between Iran and North Korea can be charted. Iranian delegations traveled to the DPRK in the early 1980s and one visit included Irans current president, Hassan Rouhani, who traveled as a representative of Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, meeting Kim Il Sung and counterparts from North Koreas Radio and Television Broadcasting Committee, said Ditto.

In 1989, Irans current Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei visited North Korea as Irans president. Khameneis official biography quotes Ruhollah Khomeinis son Ahmads claim that his father chose Khamenei as his successor based on the success of that trip.

In 1996 Iran and North Korea inaugurated friendship farms in each country. Every year, the farms hold cultural exchanges, commemorations of Khameneis visit to North Korea, and commemorations of Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-Il.

By the 2000s, some Iranian officials, many reformists, and pragmatic conservatives concerned with Irans integration into the global economy expressed alarm, declaring North Korea to be a negative example. In 2006, Mohsen Rezaee, Secretary of the Expediency Council and former chief of the Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), who himself led an official IRGC delegation to Pyongyang in 1993, cautioned that, should Iran follow a reactionary stance internationally and a policy of developmental stagnation domestically, it would fare no better than North Korea, Ditto says.

Curious details about cultural exchange emerge regularly, although rarely with much context, given the closed nature of the North Korean state.

In early 2013, the Iranian parliament approved as communications minister a former military official, Mohamed Hasan Nami, who holds a degree in state management from Pyongyangs Kim Il Sung University, although there is no evidence that many Iranian officials study there.

Also in 2013, satellite images showed that Iran maintains a seven-building embassy compound in Pyongyang, at the center of which stands the first mosque in North Koreaone of only five places of religious worship in the countrys capital. In May 2009, North Korea held Iranian Cultural Week in Pyongyang. Details surrounding such events remain sparse.

Once Passionate, Ties Now Tepid

While both countries support each other rhetorically, by 2014 there was evidence of growing distance and diverging trajectories that may eventually cause Iran to see its friendship with North Korea as a liability.

Although there has been extensive cooperation between Iran and North Korea, and they are partners in the military realm, Alireza Nader of the Rand Corporation argued [in 2014] that they are not strictly allies. Its really a transactional relationship based on mutual opposition to U.S. interests, and Irans inability to find other military partners outside the Middle Eastwith the exception of, maybe, Belarusand North Koreas economic isolation.

There isnt a common ideology there, said Nader. The two societies are completely different. Iran has a relatively sophisticated society, it has a sizeable middle class, its a merchant country [that is] susceptible to economic pressure. The government in Iran, while authoritarian, has to take public sentiment into consideration when making decisions. North Korea is a totalitarian state that lets its citizens starve.

Diverging Trajectories

Nader suggested, however, that while North Korea is likely to maintain close links with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, it has little to offer the Rouhani government, which wants to improve Irans economy and international standing. Rouhani, Nader said, is focused on improving relations with regional Arab states and European countries and potentially the United States, but also other Asian countries like China, Japan, India and South Korea. North Korea is at the bottom of that list.

Isolation makes strange bedfellows, Jon Wolfsthal observes. Theres no particular affinity between the cult of personality in North Korea and the Islamic Republic of Iran, but they have some common interests in terms of accessing hard-to-access materials, currency, luxury items [and] military equipment. Iran produces a lot of oil, North Korea needs a lot. North Korea produces a lot of ballistic missiles, Iran likes them, so theyve been able to work out what most people believe is a pretty sophisticated barter arrangement to keep this relationship going.

Perhaps the largest outstanding question [in 2014] was whether the two counties could maintain a relationship as Iran pursued a nuclear pact with the West. Should Iran improve its relationship with the world, association with North Korea may become an embarrassment.

If youre looking at the brands of North Korea and Iran, both are pretty low in the western world, but at least Iran has something that other countries want in terms of international engagement, economic capabilities, and location, Wolfsthal says. So you could say that [for] Iran, being associated with North Korea, which is recognized as just a police state, could be seen as hurting their brand.

A relationship that once thrived on friendship farms and mutually admiring founding leaders looked, in the twenty-first century, like a relic of an era that one party, at least, may hope to leave behind.

Editors Note: The body of this story was written before Donald Trump was elected president of the United States, and before he threatened fire and fury to stop North Koreas nuclear and missile program. He may hope his rhetoric will shock and awe Iran as well. More likely, it will drive the two countries closer together once again.

Adapted from IranWire. The body of this article was originally written by Roland Elliott Brown in 2014. The introduction was written by Arash Azizi.

See more here:
North Korea's Deadly Partnership With Iran - Daily Beast

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to reporters at Trump's golf estate in Bedminster, New Jersey U.S. August 10, 2017.

Jonathan Ernst

Last Updated Aug 10, 2017 8:16 PM EDT

President Trump on Thursday said he doesn't believe Iran is in compliance with the 2015 deal to curtail its nuclear weapons program, weeks after his administration certified that it is in compliance.

The president made the comments to reporters during his working vacation in Bedminster, New Jersey, after his administration certified in July that Iran is living up to its end of the bargain under the nuclear agreement. The administration is required to notify Congress every 90 days whether Iran is in compliance with the deal reached under former President Obama, and July was the second time Mr. Trump's administrationcertified compliance.

But on Thursday, Mr. Trump said some "very strong things" will take place "if they don't get themselves in compliance."

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The rising tensions with North Korea are increasing concerns about a possible military conflict. Jake Sullivan, former foreign policy adviser to ...

"I don't think they're living up to the spirit of the agreement," Mr. Trump told reporters Thursday. "President Obama in his wisdom gave them $150 billion. He gave them $1.8 billion in cash. That's a hard one to figure. But that was his decision. I think it's a horrible agreement. But they are not in compliance with the agreement and they certainly are not in the spirit of the agreement in compliance, and I think you'll see some very strong things taking place if they don't get themselves in compliance."

Mr. Trump has long condemned the agreement his predecessor made, and on the campaign trail, pledged to rip up and renegotiate the deal.

"This deal -- if I win -- will be a totally different deal. This will be a totally different deal," Mr. Trump said at a rally on Sept. 9, 2015.

But Mr. Trump has yet to renegotiate the deal.

Mr. Trump did recently sign legislation Congress passed targeting sanctions on Russia, Iran and North Korea, although Mr. Trump called the legislation "flawed." The measure targets Iran's ballistic missile program and support for terrorism and human rights violations, while complying with the Iran deal. It also imposes sanctions on any foreign person or entity that does business with any entity the administration has already designated as having a connection to Iran's ballistic missile program.

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Trump says he doesn't think Iran is complying with nuclear agreement - CBS News

by Sanam Naraghi Anderlini and Sina Azodi

In Washington, the policy of Iranian regime change that blossomed during the Bush years and withered under Obama has flowered again in the Trump administration. But those advocating regime change and those arguing vociferously against it are both losing sight of the fact that profound change is already happening in Iran.

In the Iranian political arena, differences of opinion and vision among reformists, centrists, and hardliners are daily on public view. Two strands of influence have shaped the political system of the Islamic Republic since 1979. The clerical establishment has wielded authority and determined laws and policies according to a deeply patriarchal and paternalistic approach that assumed that the people needed guidance. But the revolution also rekindled the idea of public reason and peoples power to shape their own destiny. These two divergent ideas came together in the states identity as simultaneously Islamic and a republic.

Tensions between these two tendencies have been evident since the 1990s, and the balance of power is now shifting. At a July 19 cabinet meeting, President Hassan Rouhani reminded his team of the demands of the public and the democratic process to which the officials are accountable. These shifts in attitude are critical indicators of change occurring within the system.

The change in the political sphere is prompted by the dynamic transformation of Irans social and cultural space since 1979. One of the best indicators of this transformation is the status of women, who have been key players all along. In the 1970s, the reform of family law that gave women increased rights under the shah helped to rile up the traditional clergy against Irans westernization. The clergy in turn mobilized women from poorer and more conservative communities to support the revolution. But the suspension of the family law, forced imposition of the hijab, and early attempts to take away womens rights to vote prompted a fierce backlash from women across the social spectrum. In the 1980s, barred from certain university degrees, women fought back and reclaimed their spaces, so much so that in 2015 some 70% of science, technology, engineering, and math graduates in Iran were women. The late, great Maryam Mirzakhani, the only woman to win the Fields Medal in mathematics, was among the generation of girls born after the revolution into a system that overtly discouraged gender equality. Mirzakhanis ascendance was not unique. On July 11, 2017, Irans flagship airline, Iran Air, appointed 44-year-old Farzaneh Sharafbafi as its first female CEO.

Women have also fought their way into politics. The 2016 parliamentary elections led to a new majlis with the largest number of women since the revolution. Similarly, in the 2017 city council elections, there was a 6% increase in womens victories. In the highly conservative Sistan and Baluchistan province, some 415 women won council seats. Meanwhile, there is outcry at the absence of women in the newly appointed cabinet, despite President Rouhanis election promise to appoint more women to ministerial posts.

The Iranian public has long shown that it wants the regime to change, but it does not want regime change a la Washington or Riyadh. Regime changers in Washington try to co-opt the human rights agenda by claiming that the majority of the Iranian public would support the toppling of the regime. But the 73% voter turnout in Iran and among the diaspora in the May presidential elections sent a loud and clear message: people want peaceful evolution with order, not chaotic revolution with disorder and violence.

There is good reason for this caution. Iranians historically have experienced the cycle of harj-o-marj (chaos and turmoil) when one dynasty has toppled its predecessor, destroying the good along with the bad and the ugly. The Pahlavis did it to the Qajars, who did it to the Zandiyeh dynasty. If there is fatigue about internal disruptions and fear of the unknown, there is positive revulsion at the thought of foreign interference. Throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, Iranians tried to ward off the colonial drive of the Russians and the British. In 1953, they were blindsided by the arrival of the American empire on their doorstep, undermining the countrys most popular and most democratic of leaders, Prime Minister Mohamad Mossadeq. The blowback came in 1979 with the har-o-marj that accompanied the toppling of the shah, the US embassy hostage crisis, and the emergence of the Islamic Republic.

It has been a tough 38 years. Those who were children when the revolution occurred saw their lives change overnight, witnessing firsthand the horrors of the Iran-Iraq war in the trenches and across the nations cities for eight years. The following generations have often been thwarted by the limitations imposed by the hardliners, but they have also learned the lessons of the past. It is easy to reject a system and demand its demise, but the fundamental question is: what comes in its place? The lessons of Iraq and Libya, which were plunged into chaos in the name of freedom and democracy, are sobering. Wary of violence and the disintegration of their own country, Iranians do not want the same fate.

Of course, regime-change advocates claim that there are legitimate, publicly supported opposition movements waiting in the wings to take control and bestow democracy on the Iranian people. Sadly, they are backing losing horses, such as the reviled Mojaheddin-e-Khalq that supported Saddam Hussein and his chemical weapons in the Iran-Iraq war. Meanwhile, Iranians did not heed the call of the erstwhile crown prince, Reza Pahlavi, for civil disobedience and election boycotts and treated his statements with derision.

In reality, although regime changers may claim to be defenders of democracy, they either want a malleable client state or a collision between the US and Iran. And knowing that indigenous and independent voices of dissent and dual nationals will be at even greater risk, the regime changers demonstrate a calculated cruelty by claiming to side with them. But any attack, bloodshed, or imposed leadership by external forces will prompt greater internal cohesion. When the dust settles, a population that desperately desires moderation and engagement will be angry with the world and more dependent on the very hardline forces that are currently on the wane.

There is also great danger. Iran is situated in a turbulent region, with difficult borders to control. If a weakened state can no longer police those borders, then Pakistan with its mix of Taliban, the Islamic State, and nuclear weapons would have easier passage to the Persian Gulf and beyond. Iran itself has a population of some 80 million people, mainly young and highly educated. But if the country falls into chaos, the potential ramifications of its instability would engulf the entire region.

The Iran of today is a very different country to that of 1979, 1989, 1999, or even 2009. The population increasingly has a democratic mindset. There is a genuine desire to find a transformative path to a world of live and let live. Unstoppable socio-political change is in motion with women at the lead. The best the US can do is let Iranians fulfill their own destiny, one that will be better for Iran, the region, and the U.S.

Sanam Naraghi Anderlini is the executive director of the International Civil Society Action Network and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University.Sina Azodi is a current PhDcandidate in the School of Interdisciplinary Global Studies at The University of South Florida. Photo:Farzaneh Sharafbafi

Read more from the original source:
Iran: The Change that Matters is Happening Already - LobeLog

A young Iranian who was arrested, convicted and sentenced to death as a child was executed Thursday, a semi-official news agency in Iran reported.

Human rights group Amnesty International called the killing of Alireza Tajiki "shameful."

Tajiki was 15 years old when he was arrested six years ago for murder and sodomy.

Ana.ir quoted general prosecutor of Shiraz city Ali Salehi as saying the execution took place Thursday morning and was "legal."

Ali said Tajiki had a "fair and just" prosecution and that Iran's Supreme Court upheld the death sentence following an appeal, the news outlet reported.

Under Iranian law, murder, rape, sodomy and armed robbery are punishable by death.

Separately, authorities arrested six young people for promoting Zumba, the Latin-inspired dance exercises, and other types of exercise, according to local media.

The reported arrests are part of Iran's decades-long crackdown against influences of Western culture. In June, Iran banned Zumba and other exercises considered un-Islamic.

Thursday's report says the six included two women. They were arrested by the powerful Revolutionary Guard in the town of Shahroud, about 250 miles east of the capital, Tehran.

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Iran Executes Alireza Tajiki Who Was Arrested at age 15 for Sodomy, Murder - NBCNews.com

Photo Credit: Hillel Maeir / TPS

by Andrew Friedman

Education Minister Naftali Bennett has warned the international community, including diplomats, politicians, not to allow the immediate threat posed by the Islamic State (ISIS) to blind them to the long-range threat posed by Iran.

In an English-language video published Thursday, Bennett excoriated Iran for violating the human rights of its own citizens by executing homosexuals, jailing reporters without cause and requiring women to obtain permission to travel, work or drive.

Bennett also outlined Tehrans support for international terrorism as well as the countrys growing military strength, including plans to build a nuclear weapon.

Asked whether Bennett feels the international community is listening to Israels concerns about the Iranian threat Bennetts former boss, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been warning about the issue from every available podium for nearly two decades a spokesperson for the minister told TPS that he feels the message is, in fact, beginning to make waves overseas.

A good illustration is [Bennetts] op-ed column in the Wall Street Journal on Monday. The fact they were willing to publish it shows that they are listening. I can also say that there are many politicians, diplomats, journalists and others who really are prepared to listen, even if they dont always agree with us, he said.

The spokesman added that more and more, the international community is beginning to open up to the notion that while ISIS is a difficult tactical threat right now, the answer is not to give Iran additional tools to fight ISIS now as this would serve Irans ultimate goal of building a Shiite corridor from Tehran to the Mediterranean Coast.

This corridor is an Iranian dream, said Bennett in the video. It is a highway to transfer weapons. It is a highway to transfer extremism. It will bring Iranian aircraft to striking range from Europe. It will bring Iranian ships and submarines to the Mediterranean.

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Bennett: Don't Take Eye Off Iran In Fight With ISIS - The Jewish Press - JewishPress.com